Can Meditation and Exercise Cure Carrie Mathison? Real Life Docs Weigh in on the 'Homeland' Character's Alternative Treatments

Warning: There are a few spoilers in here if you're not caught up on the current season of Homeland.

If you're a fan of Homeland, watching Carrie's breakdowns, bouts of ugly-crying, and questionable decision-making can be stressful enough to make you want to run to the therapist's office. We're only four episodes into season three of Homeland, and already Carrie is an emotional mess. Even more so than usual.

In episode one, we learned that Carrie had decided to go off her lithium, which she was taking to treat bipolar disorder (also known as manic-depressive disorder), in favor of holistic treatmentslike meditation, running, and getting a good night's sleep. It became pretty clear after an extreme meltdown or two and her subsequent decision to spill all the CIA's secrets to a reporter that her alternative treatment plan wasn't working out. (Or was it? If you watched last night—without giving too much away—that was quite the twist.)

Carrie's decision to ditch her meds isn't necessarily an unusual one, though. "You can get seduced into thinking you don't need the medication, when really you do," says Dr. James Blumenthal, a psychologist, professor, and researcher at Duke University, who also happens to be a huge Homeland fan. "That happened to [Carrie]." Because patients start to feel like "themselves" again when they're on meds, they think they'll be fine off them. And then, um, they have sex with Brody lookalikes they meet while buying lots of tequila at the convenience store. (While Dr. Blumenthal thinks there are definitely some "Hollywood" moments in the show, he acknowledges that Carrie's portrayal of a patient in the middle of a downward spiral is pretty accurate.)

Courtesy of Showtime

Photo: Courtesy of Showtime

So does Carrie even have a chance of stabilizing her mood without medications? Probably not. "In Carrie's case, if she has legitimate bipolar disorder it's not something that's treated successfully with lifestyle change," says Dr. Blumenthal.

However, Carrie definitely shouldn't give up on her running routine while she's in that psych lockdown unit. There's plenty of scientific evidence that non-medical interventions like exercise and meditation can be beneficial in patients suffering from mental illness, and also to those of us who don't have a medical diagnosis, but maybe suffer from stress or mild depression.

You know that semi-euphoric feeling you get after you hop off your spin bike? It's not because you're so excited that the torture of sitting on that hard seat for 45 minutes is finally over. "Aerobic exercise is associated with neurogenesis, which is the creation of new neurons in the brain, and that process of neurogenesis has anti-depressant affects," says Dr. Susan Evans, a psychologist and director of the Cornell Cognitive Therapy Clinic at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. "Exercise is the only non-pharmacological anti-depressant."

While Carrie definitely needs to stay on her meds, some studies demonstrate that for people with unilateral depression—as opposed to bipolar, which is a more complex disease—exercise actually can successfully replace medications. In 2007, Dr. Blumenthal and his colleagues found that exercise was just as effective as medication (they studied sertraline, aka Zoloft) in subjects with mild depression. "The studies that we've done have shown that three times per week for 35 to 45 minutes per session is sufficient to produce not only cardiovascular benefits, but also to reduce depressive symptoms significantly," explains Dr. Blumenthal.

Don't expect psychiatrists to start swapping out Prozac for prancercize anytime soon, though. "I think that in Europe, there is a movement to include exercise as a legitimate alternate treatment for depression. We don't really see that level of support in the U.S., partly because the evidence is somewhat limited and secondly because psychiatrists are trained to prescribe medications, not to prescribe exercise," says Dr. Blumenthal. (Dr. Evans, an ex-marathoner, strongly recommends it to all of her patients who can safely exercise, as a complement to whatever meds they may be taking.)

Besides exercise, other mind-body techniques can also be useful as an adjunct for treating mental illness. One study demonstrated that mindfulness therapy, a technique developed by Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, can reduce relapse in patients with depression better than medication alone. Mindfulness therapy is an Eastern practice that's been widely accepted into Western medicine. "[Mindfulness therapy] involves training your mind and brain to be right here, right now in the present moment," says Dr. Evans. "It involves meditation in the form of a body scan, using your breath, and some light Hatha yoga."

All of this begs the question of whether the CIA is really the right environment for Carrie to be working in. Dr. Blumenthal has a few recommendations for her. "It's not the situation, but it's how you cope with the situation that makes the difference. Can she still take care of herself? Is she eating properly? Getting proper sleep? Nutrition and exercise are very important," he says. "If Carrie finds that she isn't taking good care of herself as a result of the stress of her job, then she either needs to learn better ways of dealing with the job or find another job."

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